I think it depends a lot on how long the letter is, what you include, and how many people you send it to. I get a few, and they tend to feel very impersonal, because they either contain a lot of stuff I already know, because I'm actually in contact with the people concerned, or a lot of stuff that I'm not remotely interested in. (I get one every year from a woman I worked with briefly, 10 years ago. I never met any of her family, we never had much in common other than our job...2 pages of thinly veiled boasting about how wonderful her life and family are doesn't really do a lot for me! (I also find it bizarre that she goes to all the trouble of putting this letter together but has, apparently, never once in 10 years stopped to think that putting her return address on it somewhere might be a good idea - I haven't sent her a card in 10 years, because I don't know her address - apparently 10 years of silence is not enough to stop her sending the letters...))

I would rather have a short summary inside a card, as that feels more personal.

That said, I think they can be useful for keeping in touch with family or friends you don't see often, although if you can, I think it's nice to try to personalise the letters a bit, rather than just printing 20 or 309 identical letters - that way, it feels more like a real letter as you can include mentions of the recipient's family / interests.

I love the idea of a crossword (in fact I just went to puzzle-maker.com and drafted a holiday crossword as our card!)

As for the letters, I've never actually personally gotten one, but one of my customers sent one to the office last year. It was really way too much detail for near strangers and it was... well this woman and her husband have 4 or 5 grown kids. The letter went into detail about grand kids, how their youngest isn't married yet, oldest son's wedding, oh did we mention youngest isn't even dating, another son & his wife moved, we really would be blessed if youngest found herself a husband, middle daughter is expecting her first kid, maybe someday youngest will get married and have kids too, we bought a retirement place in FL, and our hopes for the New Year are prosperity and health for everyone and a husband for our youngest daughter!

It was hilarious and sad at the same time. I'm sure though if I actually knew these people, especially their youngest daughter, it would just be sad and awkward.

I've only had the energy to put one together every now and then, and I don't worry about whether people will not like getting them.

Because I try to make ours be a brief "introduction" to each member of the family--something interesting to know about them that will make you feel that you've gotten a sense of what they're like as a person, or what their year has been like. It's sometimes a challenge finding something that isn't already common knowledge (esp. w/ Facebook). Sometimes it's sort of a downer, or info that someone is struggling with some issue (carefully chosen and worded so as not to be an imposition on someone's privacy).

I do get sometimes weirded out when parents' letters contain mostly details about their grown children's lives. I think their kids should be the ones to tell me that. And it makes me wonder why their own life isn't interesting enough to take up the bulk of the newsletter. I can't imagine filling my newsletter in years to come w/ info on my DD's trip to Greece.

One year my great aunt included that she had finally been absolved of major sin that had been weighing down her soul for hears in her Christmas letter. I would avoid going into such detail that people are feeling uncomfortable or awkward reading it. A short and sweet summary is nice to read from people I don't hear from often.

I always have. Even as a kid, I used to love to read the ones that came to us.

There are a few I really look forward to....One Aunt is so confusing that's is fun to try to follow it. A cousin's family letters are hilarious. They write like they speak. Now, we're getting them from the next generation...even the annoying one is fun to get. Neice's DH just tries TOO hard to be "funny"

Pictures.... I love them, too. Our family is spread so far that we just don't get to see each other that much.

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It's not what we gather along the way that matters. It's what we scatter.